Ethiopian pro­test­ers attack fac­to­ries

Pro­test­ers in Ethiopia have dam­aged al­most a dozen mostly for­eign-owned fac­to­ries and flower farms and de­stroyed scores of ve­hi­cles this week, adding eco­nomic ca­su­al­ties to a ris­ing death toll in a wave of un­rest over land grabs and po­lit­i­cal rights. The vi­o­lence also casts a shadow over a na­tion where a state-led in­dus­trial drive has cre­ated one of Africa’s fastest grow­ing economies, but where the gov­ern­ment has also faced ris­ing in­ter­na­tional crit­i­cism and pop­u­lar op­po­si­tion to its au­thor­i­tar­ian ap­proach to devel­op­ment. The lat­est flare-up fol­lows the death of at least 55 peo­ple in a stam­pede on Sun­day, when po­lice fired tear­gas and shot in the air to dis­perse demon­stra­tors in the Oromiya re­gion near the cap­i­tal. It raises to more than 450 the num­ber of peo­ple rights groups and op­po­nents say have been killed in un­rest since 2015. A US re­searcher was killed on Tues­day when her car was at­tacked by stone-throw­ers near Ad­dis Ababa. The gov­ern­ment says the toll cited by crit­ics is in­flated. Fana Broad­cast­ing, which is seen as close to the state, re­ported on its web­site that 11 com­pa­nies had been dam­aged.